In known braking arrangements, the release member is a hand-guard lever which pivots when the chain saw is thrown rearwardly as in the kickback situation. This action causes the latching arrangement between the brake member and tensioning member to release and the brake band is applied to the brake drum under the force applied to the brake lever. To lift the brake band from the brake drum, that is, to reset the braking arrangement to its ready condition, the hand-guard lever must be pressed manually against the force of the brake spring to return it to its ready position. Since the brake spring is relatively strong, a very substantial effort is required to pivot the hand-guard lever so that lifting the brake band from the brake drum and placing the brake band in its ready position is difficult and inconvenient.
Since the person operating the chain saw must take a hand from the handle, each resetting operation will cause the work performed by the operator to be interrupted. In some circumstances, the operator's strength in one hand may not be sufficient to reset the braking arrangement so that the chain saw must be placed on an appropriate surface such as the ground where it can be braced.
The stream of work can be interrupted especially often and for a relatively long time if the braking arrangement is released at time intervals which follow rapidly one after the other. This is especially the case if the chain saw is also equipped with the so-called two-hand safety arrangement. More specifically, a signal can be provided which releases the braking arrangement if the operating person removes one hand from one of the chain saw handles. With such additional danger signals, false releases of the braking arrangement occur far more frequently so that the hand-guard lever must be pivoted to its ready position after each false release which is very time consuming and saps the strength of the operator.